Shuttleworth to Continue Sponsoring Ubuntu

Mark Shuttleworth, the main sponsor of Ubuntu, may continue to fund the Linux distribution for a few more years.

In an interview with Computerworlduk.com, the South African billionaire explained that Ubuntu vendor Canonical might have an annual revenue of a few million dollars, but it's hardly enough to cover its costs. He goes on to say that it would likely take another three to five years to make it profitable.

Shuttleworth doesn't see any reason to deviate from the company's current business model. Because desktop sales are no longer key revenue sources, services are "the only way to build businesses around Linux." Despite his concern about the current economic crisis, he voices confidence in his blog that it can only help the Linux business model rather than harm it.

In the past, Shuttleworth has always claimed to pursue no commercial plans for Ubuntu. There was never to be a cost-based version; the distribution was to remain free

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Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, wants a more elegant and user-friendly Linux-Desktop for it's users. In a full blown statement at this year’s OSCON, Ubuntu grounder Mark Shuttleworth proclaimed: ‘'The great task in front of us over the next two years is to lift the experience of the Linux desktop from something that is stable and robust and not so pretty, into something that is art'’.